


friends will be friends

by subjectiveobjection



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Hawkeye Pierce, Lesbian Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan, M/M, Trapped, and their friendship, god i love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 16:12:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19338016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subjectiveobjection/pseuds/subjectiveobjection
Summary: when the north koreans decide to shell the camp, margaret and hawkeye get trapped in col. potter's office.title taken from the queen song of the same name.





	friends will be friends

“God _damn_ it!” Margaret yells, ramming the door with her shoulder for the umpteenth time. This is like the time in the supply room with Trapper all over again, except this time she’s stuck with Pierce and they’re in Colonel Potter’s office and bombs are _actively exploding around them._

“Margaret, why don’t you spend that energy on something else?” Pierce asks, waggling his eyebrows at her. She can tell his heart’s not in it- hasn’t been in a while- but she’s grateful for the dirty jokes, at least in times like these. Better to occupy herself yelling at him than to have a panic attack or something while thinking of imminent death.

“We tried that last time we were stuck together, remember?” she asks. “And let me remind you, it was no fun- well, _afterwards_ was no fun for either-”

Another blast goes off in the compound, loud enough to make Margaret’s brain rattle in her head and forceful enough to shake dust from the ceiling. She dives to the ground, pulling Hawkeye off his chair as she goes. She throws an arm over his head (because after everything, she can’t afford to lose someone else). Two more explosions follow in quick succession, each one so loud that Margaret thinks she might die from the sound alone. Finally, the reverberations stop, and Pierce crawls away to take shelter under Potter’s desk. Margaret stays on the floor for a moment, her heart beating and her ears ringing. “Margaret, don’t be an idiot,” Pierce calls. “Get under the desk.”

She gets up, dusts herself off (not that it does much good), and throws herself at the door again. “But we need to find the Colonel!” Margaret cries, before ramming the door once more. “He’ll know what’s going on! And the patients in post-op-”

“Unless he decided to be an idiot and leave, BJ is- he’s in there with them,” Pierce says, his voice catching a little on Hunnicutt’s name. “And you need to get under the desk.”

Margaret pauses. _Hawkeye needs company,_ she reasons. “All _right,”_ she replies, trying to keep her voice from wavering. “Scoot over, I’m coming.”

She slides in under the desk with him. “Margaret?” he asks.

 _“What,_ Pierce?”

“What if the ceiling falls in?”

She smacks him. She’s rather proud of how solid the blow is, seeing as there’s barely any light under the desk.

“No, I’m serious,” Hawkeye says, his breaths starting to come a little quicker. “What if the ceiling falls in, and we’re trapped under this desk? And-”

“Hawkeye,” Margaret says- slowly, like she’s trying it on for size. “This ceiling isn’t substantial enough to trap us. If it falls in, it’ll probably break into pieces when it hits the desk. We’ll be able to crawl out.”

Hawkeye’s breaths seem to calm a little. “You’re right.”

“I suppose when you were thinking of heavy breathing, you weren’t thinking about this,” Margaret says. She’s always snapped at him for jokes like that, but she can’t bear the silence, because she’s sitting next to _Hawkeye Pierce_ and there’s never been a time where he was silent. He probably jokes in his sleep. It’s just- it’s unsettling, is what it is.

He snorts. “Margaret, did you just make a joke? A dirty one, too?”

“Maybe you oughta get your ears checked, because I don’t recall making _two,”_ Margaret replies. It’s not very funny- not at all funny, really- but they’re both tired, and hungry, and scared shitless, so Pierce starts cackling, and Margaret joins him. The laughter almost as explosive as the bombs that have been detonating for the past hour, and it racks Margaret’s body, making her stomach hurt and her sides shake.

“I- I can’t believe-” Pierce gasps. “Oh, Christ, Margaret, making us laugh was supposed to be my job!” He throws his head back, and Margaret hears a loud _thunk_ and then “Ow!” That just sets her off even more, her whole body shaking, dust on her tongue, laughter in her ears.

Of course, the war stops for nothing, not even mirth. Another bomb detonates- this one is quieter, but the building still shakes, and Margaret clutches Pierce’s upper arm like it’s a string of pearls and she’s an old, upper-class woman. Pierce curls into a ball, one hand over his own head and the other pushing Margaret’s down to her chest. She starts to relax her grip on his arm, but another explosion goes off and she clutches onto him even harder. _I’m going to die here. I’m going to die, and all I have to show for my life is a failed marriage and two failed affairs and I’m going to-_

Failed Affair #2 grabs her and pulls her roughly to his side as something cracks above them. “Jesus shitting _Christ_ will you idiot Commies knock it _off?_ I’m trying to spend some time with a _friend_ here _\- Oh, shit!”_ A shell, blowing broken glass everywhere, interrupts him.

“Jesus, we’re a _hospital!”_ Margaret yells, feeling herself grow close to tears. She’s always been an angry crier, which hasn’t gotten her far in this man’s world. She _hates_ it, hates the tears, hates the bombs, hates the war- “Where the hell are you _going?!”_ she shrieks as Hawkeye crawls out from under the desk. “You’re going to get yourself _killed!”_

“Shut the _fuck_ up, you stupid fucking idiots!” Pierce screams out the broken window. He’s not a scary person by any means, but Margaret is terrified that he’s going to get himself killed and she’ll be left without her friend. “You hear me? Stick it up your _fucking_ asses!”

In the tiny part of her brain that’s still entertaining rational thought, Margaret knows that the silence that descends isn’t because of Hawkeye, but it damn sure seems like it. He turns back from the window, his eyes unfocused and his grin lopsided. “You hear that, Margaret? No more-”

A shell detonates, breaking more glass and sending Hawkeye to the floor (of his own volition or due to the force of the bomb, she doesn’t know). Margaret thinks she screams at some point- she can’t remember. It’s just too loud, and too much, and _what if he’s dead?_ He can’t be dead. “Idiot!” she yells. “You stupid fucking idiot!”

He lifts his head and frowns, and the desire to slap him almost trumps the relief that Margaret feels. “That’s not very nice, Margaret,” he says.

“You- get back under the goddamn _desk,_ Pierce- you are the most _cretinous_ human being that I’ve ever had the displeasure of befriending!” she yells as he crawls back to the desk.

“Aww, we’re friends?” he says with a barely-visible grin.

“You’ve got glass in your face!”

“And you’ve been spending too much time with Charles, he’s the only one who says _cretinous_ in this entire camp.”

“So what if I’m enriching my vocabulary? I’m quite glad I picked it up from him, because that is the _definition_ of what you just did! If I looked up _cretin_ in the dictionary, you’d be the picture attached!” The desire to slap him is about two seconds from winning out. Even though she also wants to pick the glass out of his face (it would serve him right if she did it right now and the cuts got infected).

“I’d say something about fifth graders and picture dictionaries, but I’m tired,” he replies.

He really does sound tired. Margaret frowns as her irritation disappears- well, 95% of it does. “Nice way to bow out,” she says, her tone downshifting from angry to teasing.

“Well, you know me, I’ve got no pride,” he says. After a pause, he asks, “Do you think that BJ and the others are all right?”

His lost tone is what gets to her. “You and BJ… you’ve got something special, right?”

“Well, if we’re slumber-partying, let me just get my nail polish,” he snarks. The panic is evident in his voice, though, and Margaret can understand. She can understand too much for her own good.

“I wish I had someone like that,” she says, cautiously. “Even with that risk. I’d take it. I’d have to.”

“Oh.” And suddenly they’re on the same page again, like they are in OR, like a nurse and a doctor have to be to ensure the survival of the patient. Like good friends are.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” she says. “Post-op has some sandbags in there, and they’ve got a lot of beds. Hunnicutt’s just fine.”

A comfortable pause develops, and then Hawkeye jokes, “Maybe the North Koreans’ll do us a favor and blow his mustache off his face.”

Margaret snorts. And then she realizes- the shelling is nothing more than a faint noise. “Pierce, do you hear that?”

Dusk is really setting in now, but she can still see his grin. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he says. He crawls out from under the desk, and Margaret follows suit.

“I’ll be damned,” Margaret repeats, smiling from ear to ear. “We survived.”

“That we did, my fair lady!” Pierce exclaims. He gathers her up in a hug- warm, happy, just short of too tight- and spins her around. “We’re alive!”

A loud banging noise comes from the other side of the double doors, and then they fly open to reveal a grinning Hunnicutt, Winchester, and Colonel Potter. “Oh, thank God!” Margaret exclaims. Pierce strides over to hug Hunnicutt, and Margaret rushes over to hug both the Colonel and Charles.

“Hawk, later, I wanna know what happened to your _face,”_ Hunnicutt says, face pressed into Pierce’s shoulder.

“Don’t be expecting a good story,” Pierce replies. “I just stood by a window.”

“Idiot.”

“Aha, well, I _do_ hope you weren’t in here long enough to contract whatever degenerate diseases Pierce may be riddled with,” Winchester says after Margaret releases him.

“Ah, shove it up your ass, Charles,” Pierce replies, his face still buried in Hunnicutt’s shoulder. The two men let go of each other, and Pierce pats Hunnicutt on the face before turning towards Charles and the Colonel. “Oh, Charlie, it’s been _ages!”_ he exclaims in a falsetto, before enveloping both Winchester and Potter in his arms.

Margaret turns to face Hunnicutt, and she opens her arms. He hugs her back, and once they release each other, he says, “Good job on keeping yourselves sane.”

“Hey! How come you assume it was _her_ keeping us sane?” Pierce replies.

“Well, if I recall correctly, you were the ones who told the North Koreans to ‘stick it up their fucking asses,’” Margaret chimes in.

“Whoa there, Pierce, we might want to wash out your mouth,” the Colonel says, bushy eyebrows raised.

“Nonsense! That would just dirty the soap,” Charles says.

Pierce smacks him on the arm. “Oh, don’t sully him, Pierce,” Margaret says. She can’t keep the grin off her face. These idiots (not that she’s calling the Colonel an idiot) are her _home,_ and even though she would’ve been appalled to hear it at the beginning of this war, she couldn’t be more grateful for them now.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! @justalittlegreen provided the prompt: "Hawkeye and Margaret BFFs, preferably in some kind of stressful situation." so here we are. kudos/comments always appreciated :)) (also i haven't done a shameless self plug in a while but my tumblr is the same as my username so if u wanna drop a follow ;)


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